That's a quote from one of my favorite photographers, Life magazine's fantastically great Ralph Morse, about his rivals at Newsweek. Ralph, it was said, was of the "old school" - a term once used to describe a code of behavior, before the "hip hop" generation co-opted it to describe MTV's previous seasons.

It's ironic that Ralph's words came on the eve of his coverage of the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981, because it was this article on Soviet cosmonaut deaths which brought them back to me. The combination caused me to think not only about the attitude of the gracious winner, but of the trials and tribulations of the losers in all high-stakes games.

While I'm proud of U.S. achievements in space (I am a child of the Sputnik Era, after all), I'm simultaneously saddened at the loss of life experienced by our (former) enemies. I'm not talking about the maudlin, paralyzing, "new age sensitive man who cries at the drop of a hat" kind of sadness, but rather a genuine empathy for those who attempt something great and leave the world poorer by their absence.

Like our astronauts, the cosmonauts were proud of their homeland. They were willing to put their lives on the line to advance not only their nationalistic pride, but something more. There was an altruistic component to their flights, which they seemed to know were advancing science and technology to benefit all those who were firmly anchored to terra firma. Even as we celebrate our own successes we need to be reminded that we are as much in their debt as they are in ours.

We see where we are today only because we stand on the shoulders of all those who came before us.

(Thanks to Tam, who found the article.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I suspect, in this Age of Wii, that board games are solidly out of fashion. When I was a kid that was most assuredly not the case!

Growing up on the farm, there was no such thing as cable (or satellite) television; music was on vinyl records, not iPods; and personal computers, let alone the internet, weren't even on the horizon. Board games were therefore a significant portion of our recreational activities, and we looked forward to getting together with friends and playing our favorites.

The king of games, of course, was the all-time best seller: Monopoly - "by Parker Brothers", as the TV commercials reminded us. Kids liked it, adults liked it. Everyone, it seems, enjoyed passing the time by passing "GO" - and collecting $200.

It turns out that for some people, Monopoly wasn't a pastime - it was deadly serious.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I just came up with a hot idea for a film script. We take an archeaologist who is obsessed with the Holy Grail, and we set him out on a search for it...and we'll throw in some evil Nazis who are just waiting to get it for themselves! Wouldn't that make a great movie??

Drat. Turns out that not only is my idea not my own, it's also been done already.

Day late and a dollar short...

-=[ Grant ]=-

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently turned 50. What's DARPA, you ask? Well, it is the agency that invented the network upon which you are reading this missive.

DARPA was founded to do fundamental, high-risk research into science and technology that could be used for military purposes. Today that sounds ominous and vaguely sinister, but in the 1950s it was exciting and patriotic.

One of their projects was called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), intended as a way for DARPA staffers and researchers to disseminate information and share computing resources. It introduced email, file transfers, and even voice protocols into common use, all made possible through the magic of packet switching - another DARPA innovation. This groundbreaking computer network would, with their guidance, evolve into what we now call the internet.

(Funny, isn't it - the internet upon which you can read anti-military and anti-American rants until your eyes launch themselves from their sockets is the product of an American military project. Euro-weenies will no doubt point out that the World Wide Web was the invention of an Englishman working at a Swiss lab, but his contribution - important as it is - was simply a way of easing access to information on the already vast internet. His work would not even have been necessary had it not been for DARPA.)

The computer network wasn't DARPA's only development, of course - the magnificent Saturn V rocket and the computer mouse both came from the think tanks at the agency. How's that for a wide ranging legacy?

Happy Birthday, DARPA - keep up the good work!

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I was a wee lad, America was at the forefront of space exploration. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, we'd recovered from the shock of the Soviets beating us into space, and had responded in a big way with Gemini and Apollo programs.

In those days, our grade school classes would literally come to a halt as we gathered around a television set to watch a liftoff or a splashdown. The mighty Saturn V rockets - spewing a fireball that remains unequalled for sheer excitement - would take our astronauts into space for yet another thrilling mission. Landing men on the moon was our crowning achievement, watched by just about everyone in the country.

Space flights were national events on a scale that I haven't seen since - and probably never will again. The SuperBowl and American Idol Finals may draw larger audiences, but in terms of captivating our collective conscious, of instilling pride in our country and what we were capable of doing, they will ever equal the NASA of the mid 20th century.

NASA has put together a little retrospective of their first 50 years, using photos that have rarely been seen publicly. If you are a child of the '50s or '60s, this will bring back stirring memories of what we briefly referred to as Cape Kennedy.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Let's take inventory: secret government projects - check. Eerie underground facilities - check. Mad-scientist-movie electrical equipment - check. Iron Curtain intrigue - check.

Yep, I have everything I need for another great entry: Russian Nuclear Research Facilities.

-=[ Grant ]=-

There are very few things that can start a raging debate like politics, religion - or the Civil War. Get a few people together, perhaps with some adult beverages, ask them what started the war, and wait for the fireworks.

(Personally, this Yankee reserves his invective for President Lincoln. Regardless of the actual cause of the conflict, the fact remains that he was the first President to invalidate whole sections of the Constitution to further his schemes. That modern day leftists rail against President Bush's encroachments on civil liberties, but give the far more Machiavellian Lincoln a free pass, never fails to astonish me. But I digress...)

Anyhow, the actual conduct of the war itself is fascinating. In just a few short years, we leapt from smoothbore muzzleloaders to self-contained metallic cartridge rifles. (There were times when both would serve on the same field of battle, a clash of technologies that would be roughly analogous to having Sopwith Camels and F-15s serving in the same theater of operations.)

Espionage, sabotage, psychological warfare, and manipulation of public opinion as tools of war saw similar advancements. Not all of the operations would work out too well, though, and the story of Captain Thomas Henry Hines is a great example.

-=[ Grant ]=-

As a child of the West, I'm generally not one to get excited about the upper-right quadrant of our country. I've visited the northeast, and in general am not all that attracted to the region. However, one thing the inhabitants of the region have that I'm quite jealous of are layers of old infrastructure, just waiting to be explored.

In the distant past my job occasionally required me to travel to upstate New York. Even the things that residents of the area consider commonplace - say, the remnants of the Erie Canal - just fascinated me, because of the long and storied past of that engineering marvel. Thus I spent a large portion of my "off" time visiting local museums and historical attractions.

On one visit to the Rochester area, I took the time to follow the Canal's path from there to Tonawanda. Since I was in the "neighborhood" - literally just a few miles - I made the short hop up to see the fabled Niagara Falls. (It must be said that even I, somewhat jaded by close encounters with much higher waterfalls, was amazed at Niagara Falls. It's worth the trip.)

At the time I wasn't aware of the history of power generation at Niagara, let alone the extent of the abandoned facilities that were literally right under my feet. I am now, and boy would I like to go back and see some of it!


Courtesy of www.vanishingpoint.ca

Check them out at vanishingpoint.ca, which is a great site for urban explorers.

-=[ Grant ]=-

One of my favorite abandoned/unknonwn/old technology subjects is the fabled Beach Pneumatic Transit System in Manhattan. Nothing exists of it today - neither facilities nor artifacts - but this article at Damn Interesting gives the best overview I've seen of the ill-fated project.

-=[ Grant ]=-

As you may have guessed from previous entries, history fascinates me. Not in the sense of ancient history, or even battle locations and dates; the history I'm interested in is the history of technology. I'm interested in the history that was displayed in what used to be known as "science and industry" museums, before those institutions got caught up in showcasing meaningless "interactive" exhibits carefully crafted so as not to "offend" anyone (while managing to avoid any real education in the process.)

Anyhow, part of the history of technology is how products were represented to the buying public. The product logo, aside from showing the pride of the people who made it, served as a point of reference (and sometimes of reverence) for those who might decide to own the thing.

Vehicle logos are perhaps the perfect example of how logo design changes not only with fashion trends, but with regard to customer's expectations and aspirations. Check out this collection of auto logo evolution, courtesy of Neatorama.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Students of espionage and surveillance (which every security-conscious person should be) understand how intelligence is actually gathered, and it isn't the way it happens in Hollywood.

Those who watch too much TV think that security breaches come fully formed - that damaging information is gleaned nearly whole, needing only a few minor details filled in to make it valuable. While that may occasionally be true for satellite imaging, when putting together information gathered "on the ground" it is more like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

In reality, it is the small bits of information, gleaned from many sources, that form the picture one's opponent seeks. Even seemingly innocuous minutiae, in the hands of a skilled intelligence analyst, can help to flesh out a growing body of actionable information. Such little things - usually gathered informally and from the unwitting - are amazing valuable to the right person.

Back in World War II, the military needed to impress this concept on the U.S. population. "Mass media" back then meant radio, newspapers, and - most graphically - posters. Lots and lots of posters. Eye catching, colorful posters - works of art in their own right.

Check out some of the urgent messages they conveyed.

Here's a bunch more.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tam is excited that it's John Browning's birthday.

Personally, I find it difficult to get excited about a guy who never made a revolver....

-=[ Grant ]=-

For those that actually remember the dawn of the computer age (my first computer experience was on a time-shared GE 600-series mainframe), looking over old computer advertisements brings a flood of reactions: amusement, embarrassment, and the occasional "I wish I'd bought their stock when it was first offered." (Of course, there is also the "I'm glad I didn't buy any of their stock!")

Take a look at these vintage ads. I particularly like the one explaining what email is - not just for the content, but for the company promoting the concept. (Honeywell, once a player in mainframe computers, is perhaps best known these days for making thermostats - which is what they made before they bought their way into the computer business.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've been reading this screed for any length of time, you know my fascination with old and abandoned places. WebUrbanist, a site that deals with various cultural scenes and artifacts from all over the world, has sometimes fed this addiction of mine.

This time, they have a collection of great abandoned sites right here in the good ol' US of A.

Now, just to prove to you that I'm not "all hat and no cattle", here's a shot of an abandoned mine I ran across in southern Oregon:



Yes, it's full of water. You're looking at the roof supports, which are about six feet above the floor. No kidding.

(There was an old sign on the entrance that read "extreme danger - do not enter." Ya think??)

-=[ Grant ]=-

At least, some of them did!

Here's a great little collection of pictures from the last few decades of computer technology. Ranging from mainframes to the first microcomputers, it's a neat glimpse of just how far things have come.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Just a few tidbits today, then back to work:

- I got an email from a fellow who referred to me as having an "influential position" in the industry. Huh?? Since when? Does he know something I don't? Apparently I didn't get that memo...and neither did anyone at Ruger, Dan Wesson, or Colt. (I notice that I have yet to be invited to any industry junkets - I hear about them from AFGWWWTRA. It's probably because I don't have a big enough audience here at the Revolver Liberation Alliance. Guess I'll have to get a regular column in one of the magazines, then I'll get invited to all the "right" parties!)

- Thanks to all who expressed sympathy for my tendonitis. It's healing, slowly, but improvement has been noticed. I managed to get in a fairly normal work schedule last week, though I still can't lift anything that is moderately heavy and requires a strong grip - say, a quart of milk out of a grocery sack on the floor. I hate this whole aging process; I honestly thought that I could somehow avoid it. Silly me.

- Someone emailed a query regarding a rumor he'd heard: that Colt had sold the rights and plans for the Python to Wilson Combat, who were to begin producing them "soon." I don't know where to start with this one, but suffice it to say that it is far more suited for April 1st than November 1st. (Should you ever be involved in a game of "gunsmith trivia", both Bill Wilson and I started out in life as watchmakers. True story.)

- Finally, Tam recently posted another in her "Sunday Smith" series: the Model 15. I just wish she'd show equal love to the Colts in her collection. (Uhh, Tam, you DO have non-reciprocating Colts in your safe, don't you? Tam? Hello??)

-=[ Grant ]=-

But not the one you may have thought!

You may recall that back during World War II, we developed the first operational nuclear bomb. It was a massive effort, with the epicenter in Alamogordo, New Mexico. So, why was it called the "Manhattan Project"?

Many believe that it was a name picked to draw attention away from the desert southwest, to confuse the enemy by calling it by something completely unrelated to the project. A little security sleight-of-hand, as it were.

You might be surprised just how close to the mark the name actually was.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Well, definitely not in these!

Owing to my unnatural fascination with old and abandoned things, I find the concept of an aircraft boneyard to be absolutely irresistible. The most famous of them is no doubt the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center outside of Tucson, but there are others.

The Russians have such things, too, and they can be a fascinating glimpse into the "other side" of the Cold War.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's confession time: I'm a geek. A card carrying, spent-all-my-high-school-time-in-the-library, know-how-to-use-a-sliderule geek. I love computers, think physics should be taught in kindergarden, and generally find technology of all kinds (modern to ancient) fascinating.

Seems I'm not the only gun blogger to claim that moniker: the infamous Tam purports to be a geek, too - but is she? Is she really? Oh, yeah, she makes a big deal about her old computers - but did she ever have a DEC PDP-11/70 (running RSTS, no less) in her garage like I once did? I think not!

I, on the other hand, can prove my exalted status beyond a shadow of doubt, as I possess the ultimate geek credential: an amateur radio license. No, not your simple no-code-Tech paper, but a real I-passed-the-Morse-code-test-and-have-HF-privileges-to-show-for-it General class ticket. In the world of the terminally socially inept, the ham radio license is Da Bomb. Let's see you beat THAT, Tam! Hah! Hah-hah-hah!

(I think I've been reading far too much Mogambo Guru. But I digress...)

This nerd calling-out is just a pathetically unimaginative way of introducing today's topic: an abandoned Ionospheric Research Station hidden deep in the Ukrainian wilderness. You see, such installations are all about antennas, and any ham radio operator worthy of the title is really into antennas. I sure am; I have books about antennas, have pictures of antenna installations, and generally love looking at anything to do with antennas - the more esoteric, the better!

They don't come much grander than this one, courtesy - once again - of that web site for all geeks, Dark Roasted Blend. (If after viewing the site you have an irresistible urge to buy a pocket protector, I cannot be held responsible!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

The "buddy movie" has become a staple in Hollywood's bag of banal plot staples. They've given us cop buddy movies, firefighter buddy movies, private eye buddy movies, superhero buddy movies, and even suicidal women buddy movies.

In the hands of a master, though, even a cliche becomes fresh and intriguing. The master, in this case, is Akira Kurosawa, and the movie in question is the superb "Dersu Uzala."

Dersu is a Nanai hunter who befriends - and is befriended by - Captain Arsenyev, who is leading a surveying expedition in Siberia just after the turn of the 20th century. Dersu is the quintessential mountain man who is completely at home in nature, while Arsenyev (and his crew of soldiers) are distinctly out of place in the vast wilderness. Dersu becomes Arsenyev's friend, showing him not just how to survive in the unforgiving landscape but also a bit about the meaning of life.

Watch this clip, and note how Dersu not only sees subtle clues around him, but how he cares for those who he may never meet:



Their friendship grows out of mutual respect, not bravado; what they share is a heartfelt concern for the land and the people who inhabit it, as well as the welfare of each other.

The movie is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name, written by the real Captain Arsenyev about the real Dersu. Kurosawa had read the book and desperately wanted to bring it to the big screen, and in the 1970s finally got his chance - spending two full years filming in the wilds of Siberia. The result may, as some critics have suggested, be Kurosawa's most beautiful (and certainly most underrated) work.

Because it is a true tale, this movie teaches us more about the nature of friendship than anyone in Hollywood can fathom. There are no plot twists and no happy ending; like life, it proceeds at its own pace up to the poignant conclusion (which itself brings up back to the start of the film, reminding us of the cycle of life.)

I saw this film many years ago, and I remembered it as being a great story. Understand that I'm not a film buff - frankly, I find it hard to sit through a whole movie - and certainly not a big Kurosawa fan. That it is one of only a handful of films I actually want to own tells you that it is something truly special.

Thanks to the generosity of a close friend I now have my own copy, which I will treasure. The film is hard to find, but it is worth the search. If Nessmuk means anything to you, Dersu Uzala will be one of your favorites too.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I'm sure that by now you're quite tired of hearing about my interest in abandoned, secret, and underground places. I love exploring such things, and rarely turn down the chance to visit an old mine or poke around in the ruins of Fort Stevens, right here in Oregon. The older, danker, and creepier they are the more i like them. I can't explain this fascination, not even to myself!

I've been thinking that perhaps I've touched on this subject a bit much, and thought that it was only fair to give some balance - a counterpoint, as it were - to this keen interest of mine. Just so you know that there are some places I definitely don't want to explore, I give you abandoned bio-chem warfare facilities.

Yikes!

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've previously mentioned that I have a fascination with abandoned places, and even more for abandoned/mothballed spaces that are underground.

Well, the folks over at Dark Roasted Blend have some amazing pictures of old underground facilities around the world. You won't believe the Tokyo Storm Water System! (OK, it's not really abandoned, but it's still awfully cool.)



(As you might have guessed, I'm a fan of the History Channel's show Cities of the Underworld. Check it out!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tam profiled another revolver at The Arms Room this weekend. Her Smith & Wesson .44 Hand Ejector 2nd Model was made in 1920, and has period mother-of-pearl grips. She calls it a "tired" piece - and it is - but I like honest wear on an old gun. Great historical information in the article, as always.

---

I've played around a bit with the Steyr "M" series and their "trapezoidal" sights, and have yet to form a strong opinion one way or the other. (My wife loves them, and Massad Ayoob thinks they're neat, so apparently they have some utility - despite being relegated to the top of a self-shucking firearm. Blech.)

Apparently the Steyr effort wasn't lost on the folks at SureSight, who've developed a sight that is obviously inspired by Steyr's (though by no means a copy.) Interesting - too bad they don't make them to fit revolvers, as I'd like to try them out. (Just because I shoot a revolver, and have something of a reputation as a Luddite where firearm sights are concerned, doesn't mean that I'm totally opposed to something that will help me shoot better. They simply have to show me some marked advantage over what I have now!)

---

Speaking of sights, the Israeli company NorthEast Technologies (NET) has developed what they are not-so-modestly referring to as a "revolutionary" handgun sight. Basically, it's a long fiber optic that mounts to the rear of the slide, replacing the front and rear sights. (It reminds me of the late and hardly lamented ASP Guttersnipe that was mounted on their namesake modified S&W 39 autpistol.) Simply place the glowing red dot on the target, and pull the trigger - at least, that's how NET says it works. Hmmm...where have I heard that one before?

Still, if it works well and has no major disadvantages, it may prove to be useful for some folks. Like the SureSight, I'll believe it when I see it. (Maybe I was actually born in the "Show Me" state?)

-=[ Grant ]=-

So you're on your way home from a hard day's work in Cameroon. You pass through a small village, where everyone is dead. No external evidence of foul play, and it appears that they died very quickly - in the midst of their daily activities.

The deaths aren't limited to people. Animals for miles around died in their tracks, and just like the humans show no signs of foul play. The toll would eventually be 1,800 people and double that number of animals, all killed at the same time.

Investigators were baffled. Eventually, though, they did find the answer - and it was one worthy of a television show. It turns out that the mysterious killer had more in common with a bottle of soda than with a psychopath.

Find out what the mysterious killer was.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back when I was a teenager, I apprenticed to a master watch- and clock-maker. He was an older fellow - in his early 70s - and had been in the business for a very long time.

I enjoyed looking around his shop in spare moments, as he had many old and wonderful gadgets on his jam-packed shelves. One one high shelf, way in the back, was a little vial of off-white liquid. I asked him what it was, and he said "radium paint. We used to use it to make the numbers on dials visible in the dark. Don't touch it!"

He never did explain to me why I shouldn't touch it, but I obeyed his command and forgot all about it. That is, until I ran across this article on US Radium, the company that made the paint in that little bottle.

-=[ Grant ]=-

This week is just absolutely stuffed. Since I don't have the time to write anything profound, I'll just link to an article about this:



Hell In A Handbasket has the full story on this unusual revolver.

(Oh, and Tam has yet another revolver on her blog. I don't know what's gotten into her lately, but I hope she keeps with it!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

During World War II, Oregon had the singular distinction of being attacked by the Empire of Japan not once, not twice - but on three separate occasions. It would seem that the war planners in Tokyo had it out for us!

In early 1942, Fort Stevens - which stood guard at the mouth of the Columbia River - was shelled by the Japanese submarine I-25. Just a few months later that same submarine, this time fitted with an underwater aircraft hangar, launched a small airplane and bombed our southern coast. Finally, in 1944, the Japanese military launched a series of balloon bombs against North America, most of which landed in the forests of Oregon. One of those balloons landed in south-central Oregon, and killed 6 people - the only war casualties to occur in the mainland United States.

So, why Oregon? Basically, because we were the most convenient yet lightly defended target available to them. There is a lesson in that...

-=[ Grant ]=-

In 1988, at a facility near Henderson, Nevada, something really bad - and really loud - happened.

Pacific Engineering Production Company, aka PEPCON, was a producer of ammonium perchlorate - a very powerful oxidizer for rocket fuel. Ammonium perchlorate, as it happens, is very unstable and doesn't like fire one little bit.

Coincidentally, there was a repair crew on a television transmitter tower nearby, and not only did they witness the whole inferno they also captured an incredible video sequence of the main explosions. You just have to see it - watch for the shock wave as it travels across the ground!



You can read about the whole disaster at Damn Interesting.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Gukanjima ("Battleship"), also known as Hashima ("Border") Island sits a mere 15 kilometers from Nagasaki. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands of the Nagasaki Prefecture - but it was not always that way.

In 1890, Japan's industrialization was just gaining steam, and they needed coal to make that steam. Mitsubishi (yes, that Mitsubishi) bought the island that year, with the intention of mining the coal reserves that stretched beneath it. Mitsubishi built a city on the tiny island (only 15 acres) that eventually housed an incredible 5300 people - giving it, for a time, the highest population density on earth.

By the 1960s, coal had fallen out of favor around the world, and Japan was no exception. They began shrinking operations at the mines, and in 1974 closed the mines - and the island - completely.

Today the empty city stands, its once-bustling buildings being reclaimed by the force of wind and rain. Travel to the island is prohibited, but some intrepid photographers have made the trip to capture haunting images like these.

Wikipedia entry for Hashima Island
Archibase photo esssay - superb B&W pictures of the remains
History of Hashima Island

-=[ Grant ]=-

You know, I had a pretty darned good childhood. I grew up on a small farm, outside a small town (I remember when the town passed the 1500 resident milestone) that was nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Range.

After chores were finished and if there were no other pressing jobs to be done (like hauling hay), I got to do what I wanted. I could go down to our pond and fish, or take off with my friends Dan and/or Tom for an overnight camping trip - all with very little administrative (parental) hand-wringing. Even a two-day trip up the river and into the woods wasn't out of the question, though such an outing did prompt some worrying from my mother.

Not a bad way to grow up!

Living as I do in suburbia, I long for the time when we would run into the forest with little more than a small tent, a blanket, a sheath knife, maybe a couple cans of baked beans, and a fishing pole. (If we planned our trip into a particular area that we knew contained several small caves, we didn't even bother with the tent.) Woodcraft, such as shelter building and fire making, was an expected part of any well-balanced upbringing. I miss those days.

I have found a way to keep the hunger for simpler times at bay: I curl up with Nessmuk.

What is a Nessmuk? Properly, the question is phrased "Who is Nessmuk?"



Nessmuk was in normal existence one George Washington Sears. Sears was a slight, asthmatic individual who was born in 1821 in Massachusetts, and spent much of his life - at least, that portion when he wasn't working just to finance his next adventure - in a canoe or on a boat or in the woods.

He was able to combine his love of the outdoors and his considerable talent as a writer by having narratives of his adventures published in Forest and Stream magazine.

He wrote two books, Woodcraft and Camping, which are still in print - combined into one volume titled Woodcraft and Camping (no surprise there, right?!?) It is still available to this day, which must be some sort of record in the publishing business. (Another book, called Adirondack Letters, is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)

Woodcraft and Camping is not a thick book, nor is it solely a "how to" manual. It is the collected wisdom and insights of a man who lived just to be able to commune with nature. Nessmuk wrote in a beautiful, lyrical style that makes the reader salivate with the desire to get out into the wilderness.

At only $6.95, I believe it to be one of the greatest bargains - as well as one of the "must haves" - in outdoor literature. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys living in and exploring the wilderness, or even just dreaming about it!

Woodcraft and Camping at Amazon.com
A short biography of George Washington Sears
The Adirondack Letters online edition (free!)
Wikipedia entry on Nessmuk

-=[ Grant ]=-

Today's cel phone technologies rely on something called "spread spectrum," which is a fancy way of saying "frequency hopping." In spread spectrum, a data stream - in this case a voice - is transmitted using radio waves whose carrier rapidly switches between many frequencies, using a prearranged sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.

The reason the spread spectrum is so important - aside from being resistant to interference and very difficult to intercept - is because it makes more efficient use of scarce bandwidth. Spread spectrum makes it possible to carry more information - more conversations - amongst a limited number of frequencies.

But this use is very recent. Prior to the invention of the cel phone, frequency hopping was used to make military radio transmissions more secure. Using frequency hopping makes it far more difficult for an enemy to intercept your signal, and to use direction finders to pinpoint your location. Of course, it isn't just for voice! Frequency hopping makes it possible to have radio-control munitions, such as bombs and torpedoes, that your enemy can't jam into uselessness.

Now as useful as this is, one would think that the concept originated deep in some Pentagon think tank - but you'd be wrong! The idea came from the fertile mind of a beautiful woman, the actress Hedy Lamarr.



I'll let you read the articles below to find out about her valuable contribution to the world of communications technology!

Female Inventors: Hedy Lamarr

HEDY LAMARR: The Inventor of Frequency Hopping

Did You Know...about Hedy Lamarr?

Hedy Lamarr - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


-=[ Grant ]=-

Aside from my preoccupation with personal flying machines, I'm also fascinated by abandoned buildings, old mines, and - even though I can't swim - shipwrecks!

The schooner Milan operated on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, shuttling grain and other staples with its crew of nine men. In October of 1849, it was heading to Cleveland with a load of salt when it started taking on water. Despite the efforts of the crew, the Milan sank into the cold depths of Lake Ontario, coming to rest in over 200 feet of water.

The wreck was located in 2005, and a surprise awaited its discoverers: it sits upright, completely intact, on the bottom of the lake - even its masts are in place, sticking straight up from the deck as they did when on the surface! It is a superbly preserved example of early American sailing technology, and is an important historical find (in addition to just being really cool!)



You can read about the wreck in this article on Shiwreckworld.com, and get some more background material in this article on the ABC News website.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Let's jump back to, say, 1935 or so. Someone has just bought a new .38 Special revolver (take your pick of quality makers) and a box of ammunition - a box that might last them for a decade or more!

What I've managed to decipher from the "old folks" I've talked with is that they just didn't shoot guns all that much. There weren't a lot of competitive shooting events back then, and even those that existed demanded less ammunition in a year than a typical IDPA match consumes in a weekend. A box of handgun ammo (50 rounds) per year was considered a "lot" of shooting by many of these folks; at that rate, our mythical revolver would be considered to have been heavily used, having only seen a total of 3500 rounds!

Flash forward to 2006, and a certain maker says that their gun has an "expected lifespan" of 6,000 rounds. Doesn't sound like much to us, but it may be two or three (or possibly ten) times the number of rounds that guns sold in 1935 would expect to see over their lifetime.

Perspective, people. There is a lot to complain about in the craftsmanship (or lack of same) coming out most of today's manufacturers, but one generally can't fault the durability of the guns. There are exceptions, of course, but in the aggregate I suspect that your average GP-100 will last longer than the folks of 1935 could even imagine.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Since this is Friday the 13th, I thought I'd share with you some link that are a little on the "eery" side.

The first deals with the Battle of Los Angeles: did we fight extra-terrestrials in 1942?

Second, check out the Glore Psychiatric Museum: a weird exhibition of madness and how we deal with it.

Finally, take a listen to one of my very favorite podcasts: HomeTown Tales - "because every town has one."

Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made quite a number of photographs prior to the communist revolution of 1918. What makes them unusual is that they are in vibrant color!



Prokudin-Gorskii invented the technique to do this. What he did was to shoot 3 nearly identical black-and-white negatives in rapid succession - through narrow-band red, green and blue filters - then show them on a screen through those same red, green, and blue filters to produce color images. With today's digital techniques, it is possible to assemble these images and view them easily.

During my photographic career, I experimented with his technique with marginal success, but of course modern color films and papers made this cumbersome process superfluous. At the time I was playing with this, I did not know that Prokudin-Gorskii had invented it. It was, after all, the tail end of the Cold War, and very little was publicized about Russian technology. It wouldn't be until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the disintegration of the Iron Curtain, that such things became known.

Today, the Library of Congress has one of the largest, and the only digitally reproduced, portfolio of Prokudin-Gorskii's groundbreaking work. Absolutely fascinating to view, and a "must see" for history and technology buffs!

-=[ Grant ]=-

When we think of images of World War I, we think "black & white." But color photography, though in its infancy and quite expensive, did exist - and was used to capture images of the event and environs.

This site has a number of pictures taken by the French during the last two years of "The Great War." Wonderful slices of history, and rarely seen.

One of my favorites:



This picture show Swiss soldiers standing guard at the border with France. Switzerland, as you know, was neutral during the war; images of their soldiers during that time period are a bit hard to find. To find one in color is a rare treat. (If you look carefully, you can tell that the picture was taken through the chicken wire that served to delineate the borderline.)

I must say that it's a bit unnerving to look through these images, and not because of gore or mayhem (there isn't any.) Black-and-white pictures are an abstraction, which is why photographers like to dabble in the medium. Color, on the other hand, is "real" - it is a record, where black-and-white is an interpretation. These pictures draw you in, and make the situations being captured on film a bit less theoretical. They are almost haunting...

-=[ Grant ]=-

Saturday, June 3, Montenegro declared independence from Serbia. Montenegro, along with Serbia, had been a part of Yugoslavia since they joined the Balkan union in 1918.

Just what does this have to do with revolvers? Well, there is a revolver commonly known as a "Montenegrin revolver", and often said to have been designed or made in Montenegro.

The trouble is that there isn't a shred of truth to those tales!

The Montenegrin is more properly termed a Gasser, having originated in the Austrian arms factories of Leopold Gasser. Gasser had factories in Vienna and St. Polten. His guns were widely available in the Balkans, and were in fact adopted by the Austro/Hungarian army.

Why, then, did these 11mm revolvers get attributed to Montenegro? There are two explanations: first, that their 11mm Long chambering was originally issued to the Montenegrin army for a single shot carbine. The second, more romantic and interesting, is that King Nicholas of Montenegro had made the ownership of such arms mandatory for his male citizenry. It was also said that the King had a financial stake in their sale!

As interesting as the tale is, though, there seems to be no hard evidence to support the King's supposed order. The name continues to live on, even if we never know absolutely where it originated.

Today, original Gasser revolvers fetch a pretty penny on the open market. If looking at one, make sure it is marked from the Gasser factory - there were any number of knock-offs made in workshops in Austria and Belgium. Such arms are sometimes of questionable manufacture and value, though are often labeled with the misleading moniker of "Montenegrin revolver" by their over-enthusiastic (if ill-informed) sellers.

Happy Independence Day, Montenegro!

-=[ Grant ]=-